


Bring Me Out

by Aglio_Saggezza



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Alibaba & Morgiana brOTP, Canon Divergence, Crying Hakuryuu, Declarations Of Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Forgiveness, Gender Roles, Hakuryuu has lost his way, Redemption, Sunsets, Surprise Kissing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, alive!Alibaba, because I can't seem to write Hakuryuu without tears, but Morgiana is happy to become his knight in shining armor, only this time it's the other way around...?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 05:50:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4467788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aglio_Saggezza/pseuds/Aglio_Saggezza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They both have a lot to make up for, Hakuryuu-san perhaps more so than herself; but that doesn't mean they have to do it alone. She doubts her voice can reach him when he's already immersed so deeply in darkness, but if there's one thing Morgiana has learned since she was freed from her chains, it's that actions speak louder than words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bring Me Out

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in a canon-divergent timeline where Hakuryuu was shipped off to Sindria as soon as his joining of the Seven Seas Alliance was made public, Hakuei was sent there along with him, and Judal and doll-Alibaba eventually made it back to Earth, at which point it was decided that they would remain in Sindria as well for the time being. The Seven Seas Alliance and the Kou troops loyal to Kouen & co. are still battling it out on the Eastern continent.

She found him standing on the edge of the roof of the small building that was to be his and his sister's new home.

It didn't seem like he intended to jump, thankfully – though, as the master of two Djinns, he could've certainly survived such a thing, anyway. He appeared to be entirely absorbed in his contemplation of the great white city below, which was painted various shades of red with the light of the setting sun, and interspersed with the splashes of color that were the tropical island-nation's abundant greenery and brightly garbed inhabitants. His expression, what little she could see of it on the sliver of his profile that was within her light of sight, was more peaceful than she had seen it in months; but there was a shadow in his eyes that told her that his inner musings were most likely darker than his calm countenance would suggest.

She had always liked him, ever since they had first met. He was pretty and kind and humble and had a lovely scent, and she appreciated the fact that he always treated her like a girl first and a Fanalis second – not because she wasn't proud of her heritage or was unsatisfied with her friends' treatment of her, but simply because no-one else did, and that made him special.

He had always seemed sad, though, his polite smiles holding an edge of melancholy that made them look painfully reminiscent of the empty ones she used to wear, herself. And then there was the  _feeling_  around him: an odd sort of buzzing in her ears, like the fluttering of a thousand locusts' wings right before they flew off in a living wave of devastation and reduced entire regions to famine. A sense of terrible anticipation, of  _pain_  and  _hunger_  and  _rage_  that was just waiting to be unleashed on the world, a feeling of barely suppressed danger.

So Morgiana had liked Ren Hakuryuu, but she had always been wary of him, deep down. She had  _known_ , somehow, that he was hiding something, something she could never condone or approve of in the least, and so she had kept him at arms' length without even realizing it. She had allowed the repressed fear of him in her gut to grow and  _grow_  until she could hardly stand to be in his presence at all, and it had made her blind to his true self, to his plight, to the insanity she could have saved him from.

She had been  _terrified_  when he had confessed his love to her, absolutely frozen with horror. She hadn't been able to think straight, the memory of Hakuryuu-san chopping off Umm Madaura's head with a serene smile on his face replaying over and over in her mind even as he knelt at her feet –  _and shouldn't that have been something out of just about any slave girl's wildest dreams, a beautiful prince begging them on bended knee to let him take them as his wife?_  – and so when he had offered his heart to her, bared his soul to her, already bloody and battered and scarred but desperately hopeful, she had been too frightened to do anything but throw it right back in his face.

At the time, all she had cared about was getting away, running back to Alibaba-san's side, where everything was warm and safe and natural and  _made sense_ ; but later on, whenever she would think back on the event, she would recall the expression of pure devastation that had twisted his features – his wide, lost-child blue eyes, his flushed face slowly bleaching to bone white, his brow creasing and chin wobbling from the effort of holding back his tears – when she had refused him categorically and with such obvious revulsion, she would think,  _I did that_.

This feeling of guilt that weighed her down even as she learned to soar for Alibaba-san's sake, she carried it within her breast for the entirety of the following year. It would spring up on her every so often, unexpectedly, and every single time she would recall the look on his face  _before_  she had unthinkingly broken his heart, and she would blush in remembrance – and then blanch, happy that he had once thought so highly of her and yet remorseful for wounding him so deeply with her thoughtless, unknowing cruelty.

She would look in the mirror as she brushed her hair and think  _He said I was beautiful_. She found him absent at the battle in Magnostadt and thought  _I hurt him, he's avoiding me_. She would fight by Alibaba-san's side and think  _He said I was strong_. She heard that he had finally succeeded in killing his mother and thought  _We should have been there to help him_. She would do her best to keep Alibaba-san and Aladdin happy even as their future loomed ever closer, ever darker, and think  _He said I was kind_. She stared down at Alibaba-san, pale and lifeless in Kou robes he would've never willingly worn even at his own funeral and thought  _Hakuryuu-san was kind too, once_.

And now here they were. Hakuryuu-san, a refugee in Sindria alongside Judal and Hakuei-san as King Sinbad and Ren Kouen's forces battled it out on the Tenzan plateau; and Morgiana, in Sindria as well, because Alibaba-san was still recovering from his stint with death and Morgiana was  _never leaving his side again_  until she was absolutely  _certain_  that he would be fine.

Olba's resentment towards Hakuryuu-san, despite Alibaba-san's miraculous return to the world of the living, was now stronger than ever, as was that of his fellow ex-children of Madaura who had chosen to follow Alibaba-san. But Aladdin and Morgiana had long since accepted the fact that they would never be able to hold any kind of grudge against Ren Hakuryuu.

For Aladdin's part, this was because he was good and kind and forgiving and, Morgiana suspected, understood Hakuryuu-san's hatred of the late Ren Gyokuen, of  _Arba_ , far more clearly than even Aladdin himself probably realized. Moreover, the little magi had assured Morgiana, upon Hakuryuu-san's arrival in Sindria, that, even though Hakuryuu-san was still a Fallen being, his rukh now sang of heartbreak and defeat and loneliness instead of the maddened fury they had once howled with. In Aladdin's opinion, the Kou prince who had once been their trusted friend was more deserving of pity than he was, of scorn.

Morgiana, for her part, disagreed. She believed that Hakuryuu-san was simply  _lost_ ; that, after he had finally reached his goal, had avenged the brothers and father he had so loved and admired by permanently  _removing_  their murderer from the face of the earth, he had found himself entirely empty and directionless. And so, for lack of any better prospects, he had decided to let himself succumb to his bitterness towards Ren Kouen – towards any and all who had been aware of Ren Gyokuen's treachery and of Al-Thamen's influence over the Kou Empire, and had done nothing – and turn it into his new goal, which Judal, of course, would've only encouraged.

She believed that Hakuryuu-san needed true friends now more than ever, even if she didn't think  _she_  could still qualify for that title, given that she had played a major part in breaking him and driving him to Depravity in the first place. And Alibaba-san agreed, she knew that for a fact: he would've no doubt already been here on this very roof right now, effortlessly forgiving Hakuryuu-san and soon cheerfully bantering with the Kou prince just like old times, if only Olba and Toto-san weren't so adamant that he remain bedridden until he was completely healed (not that Morgiana disapproved of their overprotectiveness, mind). So Morgiana would do it in his stead.

And she had her own selfish reasons for being here, too.

"Hakuryuu-san," she said at last, realizing that perhaps staring fixedly at the back of the boy in question for several minutes while lost in thought wasn't the best way to start a conversation.

The Dungeon capturer didn't startle upon being addressed, which showed that he had been aware of her presence but, like her, had simply neglected to act on this knowledge. This did not bode well for her chances of achieving any form of true dialogue with him, but she refused to give up so quickly. "Hakuryuu-san, you never came back."

Hakuryuu-san turned his head slightly to the side so he could slant a look at her over his shoulder, but remained blank-faced and silent. His scent was slightly inquisitive.

"You said you would come back to propose to me again someday." It was only because she had practiced these very words in the mirror countless times before that she managed not to flush or falter as she spoke them. "But you never did."

His shoulders twitched minutely as if he were suppressing a flinch, which wasn't the sort of reaction she had been hoping for, but at least she had his attention now. Indeed, he slowly shifted on his feet so that he was facing her, though the line of his upper body remained perpendicular to her own position, as if he were instinctively making himself a smaller target in the eventuality of an attack, and the sight of him – the  _meaning_  of that small but incredibly telling gesture – had sour, stinging guilt rising up her esophagus like bile.

He hesitated for a moment, his eyes meeting hers only briefly before they flicked instead toward a point somewhere over her left shoulder. Then he licked his lips nervously, needlessly adjusting his grip on Zagan's metal vessel, and finally admitted, "I did not believe you would want me to."

"I missed Hakuryuu-san," was all Morgiana could say in return, because she was only now realizing that maybe she really  _would_  have wanted that, and she wasn't quite sure what to do with the idea. "So did Aladdin and Alibaba-san."

'Skeptical' would not have been a strong enough word to describe the intensity of the doubtful look now painting Hakuryuu-san's rapidly paling features. "I  _killed_  Alibaba-dono."

"He cut off your legs. And he's fine now." Well, mostly. The ends of Alibaba-san's limbs still tended to fall asleep sometimes, and he was about as steady on his feet as a newborn fawn, but Hakuryuu-san hadn't been by the healing chambers to visit the Balbadd prince yet, and what he didn't know would've hurt him.

"He wasn't, for a good long while." Ah, she'd forgotten how stubborn the Kou prince could be once he got an idea into his head; maybe this was because he had always directed that obstinacy at Alibaba-san in the past, and remained a perfect gentleman to her. She was happy that he was now comfortable enough in her presence to be his true, bullheaded self, but it was rather irritating all the same.

Nonetheless, two could play that game. "And now he is."

"Aladdin-dono was forced to make his first kill."

"He never blamed Hakuryuu-san for it." And the little magi really hadn't: rather, Aladdin had blamed  _himself_  instead, which had been a cause for concern for a while but the boy had bounced back from his slump as soon as Judal had found his way back to earth and brought Alibaba-san with him, so there really was no harm done.

Hakuryuu-san seemed to be growing annoyed by her unflappable façade now, his brow darkening with a frown even as a small spark of anger alit in his pale, mismatched eyes. "Because of my actions, Judal died too."

"And yet he is still as loyal to Hakuryuu-san as he was before." Which was rather odd concept in and of itself, but the flighty, capricious Fallen magi's devotion to Hakuryuu-san  _was_  real, anyone could tell: even a non-Fanalis who didn't have Morgiana's sense of smell could easily see the bonds of understanding and trust that existed between the two dark-haired Kou refugees ( _though Morgiana generally preferred not to acknowledge the thorny coils of jealousy that tightened around her heart at the thought of Hakuryuu-san finding such camaraderie with anyone who wasn't of Alibaba-san, Aladdin or herself_ ).

Morgiana could hear Hakuryuu-san's teeth grinding, but he sounded more devastated than angry when he gritted out the following words like they were being forcibly tugged out of his throat and past his lips. "I killed  _you_ , too, Morgiana-dono. In Belial's Dungeon."

He had  _finally_  called her by name! She was so thrilled to hear it that she even managed to sound almost lighthearted as she parried with, "I, too, have imagined maiming Hakuryuu-san in creative ways since he left us without proper explanation."

She  _saw_  it, that tiny smile that tugged almost unnoticeably at the corners of Hakuryuu-san's lips for a split-second, and it was a more beautiful sight than even the red sun that was slowly sinking under the oceanic horizon behind him. She felt her own lips turn upward in response, triumph thrumming through her veins with every beat of her pounding heart, and for a moment she thought that  _this was it_ , she had somehow managed to break through the thick walls he had painstakingly built around his soul over the previous year, and things would go back to how they were before, only perhaps  _better_ —

But then a look of reminiscent realization entered blue eyes that had been slowly thawing and turned them icy and fathomless once more, his expression of wry amusement faltering. He bowed his head so that his bangs, longer than she remembered and parted over his left eye instead of at the center of his brow as they had been in the past, hid most of his face from view; his voice was hollow when he murmured, "You despised me."

She knew what event he was referring to, and found it hard to swallow against her suddenly dry throat, but forced herself to reply regardless, feeling distantly proud when her voice came out strong and clear. "I was scared. I…as a slave, I hadn't once thought that a prince of high status would feel that way about someone like me, and after what happened with the Great Holy Mother…" Morgiana paused, watching his hands tighten spasmodically around the pole of his metal vessel before being forcibly relaxed, one of the corners of his mouth kicking up in a half-snarl.

She waited for the sudden tension that had overtaken his frame to dissipate, and then went on. "But despising Hakuryuu-san…I never could."

Only now did she realize exactly how true that was. Morgiana wasn't the angry sort, she was a rather calm and mellow person by nature, but even she would have normally been filled with blinding, blazing  **rage**  at the thought of someone,  _anyone_  doing to Alibaba-san what Hakuryuu-san had.

And yet, when Aladdin had brought back a comatose, unresponsive Alibaba-san from Rakushou, when Morgiana had returned empty-handed from the Great Rift only to walk straight into Alibaba-san's funeral; she had been devastated, inconsolable, heartbroken to find that she had been unable to keep her friend and savior healthy and alive. But not once – not  _once_  – had she had a single resentful thought towards Hakuryuu-san.

She hadn't bothered to ponder the  _why_  of it at the time, too busy trying to keep herself from drowning when it felt like the sun had just been snuffed out and all the warmth in the world, sucked away into the darkness of space; but now she had to wonder. And the only possible answers that came to mind were ones she had never expected to find, but which made a rather tragic amount of sense now that she was presented with them.

Hakuryuu-san's eyes still appeared to be glued to his own feet, however, so naturally, he hadn't caught a glimpse of the look of stunned realization Morgiana was now wearing. Instead, he seemed to have taken her declaration as a challenge and, prideful as ever, wasted no time in rising to meet it. "I turned a quarter of my country's army into puppets, even though it was my duty as Emperor to protect and cherish them."

"The fact that you think so," said Morgiana, keeping her voice steady and unequivocal in spite of how unbalanced she still felt in the wake of her sudden revelation, "already makes you a good ruler, regardless of your actions. Actions you are clearly repenting for."

"I plotted to murder my own blood."

Hakuryuu-san's frustration was clearly mounting, but she didn't waver in her conviction. "And so did they."

"I forced Ane-ue to abandon her chosen liege for my sake!"

(It was admirable of Kou's first imperial princess to have chosen her little brother in the end when said brother's life was so drastically threatened, but all the same, Morgiana couldn't help but silently disapprove of the fact that Hakuei-san had abandoned him long enough for him to Fall into depravity in the first place. She didn't believe, however, that this was an opinion that Hakuryuu-san, who still adored and idolized his sister despite his obvious efforts to avoid coming into any kind of contact with her since the siblings' and magi's arrival in Sindria, would welcome hearing.)

"Hakuei-san loves you and would do it all over again."

Hakuryuu-san's face was impassive, but his eyes were shiny and wet and his voice was thick when he fumbled for another retort in their odd little game of self-flagellation and freely given absolution. "I…I killed Alibaba-dono."

"Hakuryuu-san is repeating himself. I never once blamed you for it, and neither did Alibaba-san. We both simply want Hakuryuu-san to be happy."

Hakuryuu-san stared vacantly at Morgiana for a long, long moment, and Morgiana stared back, not twitching a single facial muscle as she waited for the figurative dam to, inevitably, break. Both prince and household member were completely silent, but Morgiana was a  _Fanalis_ , and so she sensed his oncoming outburst before it even began: she smelled the salt on his person, heard his breaths become more and more watery, felt the increasingly violent trembling of his tightly fisted hands disturb the still air—

And then he finally lost his hold on the tight lid he had been keeping on his turbulent emotions since, probably, the day he had left Alibaba-san, Aladdin and herself for good, and it all came pouring out in a torrent of tears.

Just as it had been in Zagan's Dungeon all those months ago, his face was flushed and grief-stricken, and he was wailing like a lost child, fat, salty tears rolling down his cheeks as snot dripped from his scrunched-up nose; his eyes were screwed shut as he struggled to dash away the constant stream of moisture they were emitting with quivering, balled-up fists. Zagan's metal vessel tumbled to the ground with a clatter; he managed to remain standing despite his wobbling legs, but his back was bowed and his shoulders were hunched like he was trying to shrug off the weight of the world that was resting on them, like he was trying to disappear into himself, and he was clearly ashamed of being seen by her in such a state, which only made him feel worse and cry harder.

_Gone_  was the untouchable, cold-hearted emperor who had attacked Alibaba-san with intent to kill and would've destroyed the world if he hadn't been stopped. All Morgiana saw before her was the Hakuryuu-san of  _before_ , the friend she had desperately hoped wasn't lost to them forever, the boy who had once been so,  _so_  much kinder than anyone else in his position would've had the strength to be, who was always striving to keep moving forward even as he was betrayed and scorned and abandoned by all of those whom he held dear.

Morgiana knew that he needed this, needed to finally let out all of his pent-up emotions instead of keeping up his thin veneer of apathy when it was plain, for anyone who truly knew him, to see that he had been on the verge of snapping since he had arrived in Sindria. The silence he had fallen into over the past few weeks had been worrisome: empty, yet loaded and dauntingly tenuous, like the calm before the storm – and it was  _good_  that she had pushed him into breaking it, it was  _healthy_.

But all the same, it was hard for her to see him like this. She felt guiltier than ever, a small, malicious voice in the back of her mind whispering that perhaps, if she had rejected him less harshly all those months ago, if she managed to see past her own fear long enough to draw him back into the fold of the friendship and teamwork and trust the four of them had built up inside Zagan…then, maybe none of this would have ever happened.

Maybe Hakuryuu-san would have followed her into the Great Rift instead of going back to Kou; maybe he would have reunited with Alibaba-san and Aladdin alongside her instead of setting out to murder his mother; maybe he would have decided to join the three of them in their decision to put their all into preventing the world from becoming just another Alma Torran, instead of Falling so deeply into darkness that his feelings of friendship towards Alibaba-san had become buried deep under all the rancor, self-loathing and bitterness that was ripping his soul apart. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

There was no sense in dwelling on what-ifs when she had a chance to finally fix things once and for all, right in front of her. Morgiana had already shed plenty of tears, in the past, over matters which she could not change: she had no desire to resort to doing so  _now_ , when Hakuryuu-san obviously needed her to be strong while he allowed himself this one moment of weakness. So she took a few deep, shuddering breaths, keeping at it until she was completely calm, and then she asked, again, "Why didn't you keep your promise? Why didn't you ever come back?"

It took him a long while to answer her, as, every time he opened his mouth, it was sobs that came tumbling out instead of words, but he did manage it eventually, even though he kept his eyes steadfastly closed throughout it all, as if the sight of her compassionate visage caused him pain. She tried not to show how much the thought of that  _hurt_ , and concentrated on keeping up an open, understanding air instead; this did not come naturally to her as she wasn't the most expressive of people, but Hakuryuu-san was worth the effort ( _and much, much more_ ).

"I never intended to in the first place," Hakuryuu-san choked out at last amidst much sniffling and hiccoughing (which Morgiana, in the privacy of her own mind, found to be, inappropriately, rather adorable). "I simply didn't want Morgiana-dono to feel as though I was only leaving because she had refused me."

Morgiana blinked once, twice, thrice—and then a helpless smile spread across her face as a warm feeling bloomed to life in her chest, like a sunflower slowly unfurling its petals.

Oh, this person. This sweet, wonderful, amazing person who had never been dealt a fair hand in life and had never been offered a kind hand to hold, who was exactly like her before she had decided to devote herself to Alibaba-san: an animal that lashed out instinctively at any who dared come near, that had been kicked far too many times in the past to truly put their trust in anyone but desperately  _wanted_  to anyway.

Only, Morgiana  _had_  found someone to trust in the end, had soon found herself surrounded and supported on all sides by people whom she loved and who loved her back – whereas Hakuryuu-san had had no-one, no-one who hadn't left him eventually or who wasn't an undeniably terrible influence on him like Judal, at any rate.

She, Aladdin and Alibaba-san  _should_  have been those people for Hakuryuu-san. She, in particular, should have been far more considerate of Hakuryuu-san's feelings even if she hadn't returned them – only she knew that she now  _did_ , and she never wanted to make the same mistake again. She wasn't going to be like everyone else in Hakuryuu-san's life before her, extending a seemingly helpful hand towards him, only to always snatch it back at the last minute, or use it to claw out his heart instead of gently holding it in their palm.

Alibaba-san had saved Morgiana. He had been her light in the darkness, taking her in and becoming her friend even after she had almost killed him and  _freeing_  her in so many ways, when she had been tied down by countless chains both tangible or not; and she was sure that Alibaba-san intended to do exactly the same for Hakuryuu-san as soon as he was back on his feet. But Morgiana, selfishly, didn't want that: rather,  _she_  wanted to be the one to do all of this for Hakuryuu-san.

She could  _see_  it now, she finally possessed the self-awareness, the understanding of her own reactions and motivations that had so eluded her before: she had kept thinking of Hakuryuu-san for all those months, because she  _cared_  about him. She had worried about his wellbeing and about what he must now think of her, because she  _liked_  him.

She had hoped that he would one day keep his promise and come back to her, because she  _wanted_  him. And it was with this realization burning brightly in her mind that Morgiana slowly knelt at Hakuryuu-san's feet and gently tugged his right hand away from the patch of his own robes it had been tightly gripping, so that she could cradle it with her own.

Hakuryuu-san had put himself out there, last year, when he had brazenly proposed to her on a deserted dirt path outside the gates of that Aktian town. He had been almost certain that she would refuse him, but he had forged on anyway, because the thought of being separated from her forever had been far more frightening, in his eyes, than the thought of facing her rejection. He had been so very brave, and she had responded by trampling all over his feelings, too blinded by her own terror to see the truth of the exceptional gift he was so freely offering her.

There was a possibility that he would do the same. The events of the past year were rather undeniable proof of the fact that Hakuryuu-san could hold a grudge for a very long time, but he wasn't a spiteful person, so she didn't think he would turn her down simply as revenge for her doing the same what felt like ages ago; but she had no way of knowing whether or not his feelings for her had changed, whether or not he would ever be able to trust her with his heart again even if he  _did_  care for her still.

Hakuryuu-san hadn't known that back then, either. But he had taken the risk regardless, because the potential reward had been worth the potential negative consequences of his boldness.

As she stared up into his wide, astonished heterochromatic eyes, from which a few stray tears were still spilling with his every baffled blink, Morgiana thought she might understand exactly how apprehensive he must've felt at that moment. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage like it was demanding to be let out, her palms felt cold and clammy, there was a lump high in her throat that made the very thought of speaking, impossible, and the act of breathing, difficult; her eyes were probably just as huge and visibly filled with trepidation as they felt. But Hakuryuu-san hadn't lost his nerve even in the face of his own frazzled nerves, and neither would she: so she took a sharp breath through her nose, then clenched her eyes shut and threw caution to the wind.

Her grasp on Hakuryuu-san hand shifted to his wrist, and before she could lose her nerve, she swiftly pulled him down until he bent at the waist even as she surged upward from her kneeling position, enjoying the small sound of surprise he let out when she drew him into a kiss that was salty with tears and snot. He didn't struggle or attempt to pull away from her, apparently just as frozen in surprise as she had been back then; but she knew from personal experience that this did not mean that his response would be a positive one, so she didn't linger too long, pulling away after only a few short moments. And then she waited.

She watched as his eyes slowly fluttered open, several long seconds after she had disengaged from their lip-lock and rolled back onto the balls of her feet. She watched as he blinked dazedly, the hand opposite the one she still held captive slowly drifting up to run a wooden finger over his lower lip, as if to ascertain that the kiss hadn't just been his imagination. She watched as he finally seemed to realize that he had indeed not dreamed it up, and a furious pink blush began to darken his cheeks until it had spread up to the bridge of his nose and down to the skin of his neck. She watched as he stared down at her with astonished, mystified, helpless still-dewy eyes that looked more  _alive_  and open than they had since he had first started to see her, Alibaba-san and Aladdin as true comrades inside Zagan, before their friendship had bent and fractured and shattered under the weight of hurt feelings, prejudice and perceived betrayals.

And she  _smiled_ , doing her best to let all of her bright, warm feelings for him shine through her normally inexpressive countenance; and then she opened her mouth and spoke words that must have once felt just as weighty and momentous on his tongue as they did on hers.

( _This changed nothing, of course. Hakuryuu-san was still Fallen. His country was still at war because of the mistakes he had committed, he was still shouldering a great deal of guilt that a single friend's words could not magically absolve him from. And Morgiana was still a girl who was only just beginning to discover what true freedom felt like, who was far too used to keeping her expressions in check and shying away from touch to make for a good romantic partner. But maybe, if Hakuryuu-san was willing, they could help each other change for the better._ )

"Hakuryuu-san… I like you. I would like to make you mine, if you would have me."

**Author's Note:**

> Well, Hakuryuu DID say that his type was "a gallant woman". *gigglesnorts as she has a flashback to all the scenes where Mor-san carries Alibaba and/or Hakuryuu bridal style*
> 
> This one-shot was born from my insane obsession with pairing my adorable Hakuryuu with anything that moves, and from my sudden realization that it had been literally years since I had last written a story whose main pairing was het (pairings involving genderbent characters don't count). Also, HakuMor are adorable, but it was a dickish move on Hakuryuu's part to steal her first kiss without asking, and a dickish move on Morgiana's to turn him down so incredibly harshly, even if he was coming on too strong. So I decided to fix that. Because I only ever seem to write fix-its these days.


End file.
